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For years this city has anticipated the bloom of this plant, a green and purple giant that opens for less than 48 hours and emits a perfume that botanists liken to that of rotting flesh. While the evolutionary purpose of the scent is to attract pollinating bugs that normally feed on dead animals, the smell had the effect of attracting thousands of visitors this week to the Denver Botanic Gardens, where they stood in a snaking line for their moment with the stinky star.

“It’s the equivalent of the circus coming to town,” said Alan Walker, 65, a volunteer who stood at the entrance to the gardens on Wednesday amid a sea of stroller-pushing parents and children in sun hats. He confided that while he is a plant lover, he found it odd that “all these people would line up for something that smells like a combination of Limburger cheese and gym socks.”

The corpse flower, known more formally as the titan arum, is native to the rain forests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but elsewhere lives only in botanic gardens, said Nick Snakenberg, curator of tropical collections at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Rare and fussy, the flower typically must be eight to 20 years old before it blooms for the first time; after that, it continues to bloom infrequently. Scientists know it by its Latin name, Amorphophallus titanum.